Dedicated to the Individual.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual; those who deny individual rights, cannot therefore claim to be defenders of minorities.
-Ayn Rand-

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Monday, April 15, 2013

Aquaponics and the High Density Vertical Growth Garden

Aquaponics and the High Density Vertical Growth (HDVG) Garden

Many potential homesteaders, and new preppers have big problems when it comes to food production, (notice I did not say storage) problems such as: I live in an apartment, I have a small yard, my soil is terrible, etc...

So with the coming food crises, looming energy shortages, or soon to come hyper-inflation causing food prices to skyrocket, people need effective low-cost solutions to grow their own food. To be food independent. One really great potential is High Density Vertical Growth Aquaponics (HDVG). Sounds like something DirecTV charges extra for - but its not.

The HDVG system is designed to grow
vegetables and other foods much more efficiently and with greater food
value than in agricultural field conditions. The HDVG system demonstrates the following characteristics:

Produces approximately 20 times the normal production volume for field crops

Requires 5% of the normal water requirements for field crops

Can be built on non-arable lands and close to major city markets

Can work in a variety of environments: urban, suburban, countryside, desert etc.

Does not use herbicides or pesticides

Will have very significant operating and capital cost savings over field agriculture

Will drastically reduce transportation costs to market resulting in
further savings, higher quality and fresher foods on delivery, and less
transportation pollution

Will be easily scalable from small to very large food production situations

ZipGrow

ZipGrow towers are an
efficient and productive way to grow crops. Most aquaponic producers
utilize rafts for productions, but rafts are not productive enough per
square foot to make production in greenhouses economically feasible.

ZipGrow
towers typically produce 3-4 times more per square foot than
traditional raft production methods. This is due to the light
conservation aspects of the tower design as well as the modular aspects
of the tower design that can utilize conveyor production techniques to
maximize crop yield. By spacing ZipGrow Towers in rows you can not only
maximize crop density but also use light more efficiently than any other
tower system on the market, guaranteed.

When
used as recommended ZipGrow tower systems can increase the production
per square foot of greenhouse by 300 to 400%. Useful in a variety of
different systems, from hydroponics to aquaponics, ZipGrow towers are
the best soilless plant production tool on the market, guaranteed.
Towers are offered in a variety of sizes and configurations, depending
on grower needs.

How it works

Integrating
ZipGrow towers ino traditional production systems is relatively simple,
requiring only minor changes to greenhouse infrastructure. During this
process, local producers negotiate with local markets to use a ZipGrow
GreenGrocer for in sore produce sales. Producers then move towers to
market, exchanging mature towers with harvested ones, which are cycled
back into production.

An even cheaper solution would be to purchase 6 foot lengths of 4 inch PVC pipe. Then drill 3/4 to 1 inch holes every 6-8 inches (varies according to plant size). Fix the pipe to a flow-through screened base. The screen should be fine enough to hold in small gravel, but coarse enough to allow free flow of growth medium. Then stand it up, fill it with larger gravel in the bottom 8 inches then a pea gravel the rest of the way up. Make sure you stop at each hole to insert your plant. The problem here would be in cleanup and the weight of the system. Obviously a tube filled with a very lightweight open mesh type foam would be much lighter than a gravel medium. But in a pinch the gravel would probably work with some modifications.

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Our Mission

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.William Shakespeare

We have been following this path (active prepping) since the early 1990's. In our case this includes military training, weapons training, hunting, fishing, tracking, advanced martial arts training in open hand CQB and hand weapons, orienteering, outdoors skills, and other less obvious but important skills. Your training and skills should, as much as possible, always be seen as tools that need to be improved. You never know everything and you can always forget what you know.

This site is dedicated not just to survival, but to the people who choose to live, with dignity as sovereign beings. We see too many people who focus entirely too much energy in pleasing themselves with shallow pursuits. Sacrificing their own freedom, and independence.

I believe we can all be sovereign citizens - by living life for ourselves; and not for the sake of others, or a group, or a collective state. Too many people spend too much of their time, money and lives concerned with what others think of them, and trying to gain the esteem of strangers. This is dangerous and not only effects how they spend the bulk of their money and their life's productivity, but even how they vote and how they view governance.

This "lifepath" I just described, which I call "living life for others", (Ayn Rand called it, "second hand living"), impacts the choices many people make about the cars they drive, the houses they own, even the clothes they wear. In its most essential form, it is an unthinking compulsion, or need to impress other people. The cold fact is other people, especially strangers - do not think about, or care at all, what you drive, what you wear, or what sort of house you live in; and even if they did, is it not somewhat insane to live life this way.

This false life path of "living to impress others" or "maintaining appearances" is a central ingredient of collectivist governance, and religious power schemes. It is how organizations like governments and religions control people. This primary tool of control has been used by countless entities: organized religion; and later by governments....i.e., leninism, marxism, socialism, facism whatever you may call it. They and all other collectivist forms of control use a few simple but effective mechanisms to control people; the desire to "belong", and....altruism.

Like Spock in Star Trek - the proponents of collectivism believe "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one".

But this is a false and dangerous lie....for who determines what "need" is, and how exactly is the "many" determined?

By this vague but noble sounding principle two people....maybe your neighbors.....should be allowed to get together and "vote" to steal your belongings; your food, maybe your house, maybe your children......or even your life.

Why NOT - don't their needs outweigh yours?

The right answer, of course - is NO. America was, historically, the only form of government EVER founded on the principle that an INDIVIDUAL'S needs are paramount; and that together we all make up a society of individuals and that a proper governments central responsibility is to protect the INDIVIDUAL rights of its citizens.

Collectivism is a corrupt ideology by which people are legally allowed to steal the property, and productivity of an individual, any individual. They are justified by a vague undefined notion of the "needs" of some group or collective. Which can never be satisfied because "NEED" is always great according to someone.

Modern collectivism also has another benefit to its followers - it's phony altruism provides a twisted path to easy nobility. This un-earned nobility is often driven by the need to impress others with your apparent "compassion".

The answer to this is simple - Live life for yourself. Make choices for yourself - based on the way YOU want to live, and the person YOU want to be.

Do not concern yourselves with what others do, and how they choose to live. Learn to be at peace with your choices, and find yourself and true contentment.-----------------------------------------------------------------